Last summer everyone talked about going to Yosemite, but it never happened.
Today I got to step foot into Yosemite with a group of fun and interesting individuals.
There were five of us: an American military guy, an Indian who’s really into dancing, a Vietnamese Purdue student with an Australian accent, a 19 yo Asian American who’s stayed in San Diego his entire life, and a Malaysian (me).
Each with our own unique background and life story, we shared stories about dancing, dating, curses and ghost, favorite movies, ranted about Tesla, and hardships as an international student.
As we neared Yosemite, our phone signals started to fade, and we jammed to DW’s CD collection of Kelly Clarkson, Phil Collins, Elton John, Coldplay.
We first saw the rushing river beside the road, and the green hills.
Then we hit the long queue of other family/friends/couples trying to the enter Yosemite for this long weekend.
"Who's idea was it to come Yosemite?" DW jokes.
After an hour, we see the entrance to Yosemite.
Entering Yosemite, we drew the windows down and with wind blowing on our faces, we started soaking everything in.
A half-hour drive in, we see clusters of people and a couple tourists buses parked out.
There were so many people.
We got out of the car, and saw El Capitan on our left, and Bridalveil falls on our right.
I remember just looking up, and being in awe at how Alex Honnold was able to climb that massive rock, without ropes.
There were a lot of tourists, which kind of stole the feeling of being in nature.
We first took some pictures at the fall, and then went on our first hike: Mirror lake.
It was a relaxing hike, we talked on the way, which made the hike go by really fast.
The highlight of the hike was seeing a brown bear, just a hundred feet away.
I felt moss and dirt on my hands, the ice cold Yosemite lake, and saw ants crawling around on the ground.
After the hike, we headed back down to our lodge, and had dinner at a bar and grill.
THe Boston vs Miami game was playing.
We played some ping pong and pool at the game room.
We watched Big Bang Theory on the TV.
We slept at 10, and planned to get up at 6 a.m. sharp the next morning.